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Small-farm aggregators, called food hubs, are helping wholesalers stock local food and sell it with integrity; with the local economic, environmental, and social benefits consumers want. The new Wallace Center-National Good Food Network report — Food Hubs: Solving Local — shows how.Here’s an excerpt of the report, co-authored by Patty … [Read more...]

What are the economic drivers behind so much local food demand and business growth? My answer in a presentation earlier this year is that it is a highly entrepreneurial spirit inside all of us that is breaking down major barriers and opening new opportunity. The secret to further growth and development of local and regional food systems is to drop … [Read more...]

Financing team offers training as part of healthy food initiativeBy Patty CantrellNic Welty employs himself full time year-round raising lettuce, spinach, and other leafy greens in three low-cost passive solar greenhouses, which together cover less than one acre of land.His Nine Bean Rows farm near Traverse City, MI, is one of many … [Read more...]

By Patty Cantrell and Bob Heuer, Fair Food NetworkSam Shina’s family owns 14 small grocery stores in Detroit. One of them could soon be part of a market incentive experiment designed to improve public health, expand sales for Michigan farmers, and grow local economies.Pending federal approval, Shina’s Apollo Market will become one of five … [Read more...]

By Patty CantrellLloy and Rollin Jones will plant 15 acres of wildflowers in Kalkaska County this fall to help build back native species needed for food pollination. Students at Leland Public Schools are this year getting local farm potatoes, apples, and more in their lunches. A farm in Emmet County is still in the family and in full-time … [Read more...]